The Effects of Spiritual Well-Being, Family Protective Factors, and Family Strength on the Marital Satisfaction Based on the Strength-Based Approach

Understanding what makes couples strong has given helping professionals specific characteristics they can focus on and develop within families. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of spiritual well-being, family protective factors, and family strength on marital satisfaction in a propositional structural model. The research population consisted of all the married people of the Isfahan city (Iran), in the year of 2012 with preschool children and in the first decade of marriage with at least 9 grades of education level. Subjects were selected randomly through a multistage sampling from 7 parts of the city (N= 304). The instruments used in this study were the Spiritual Well-being Scale, Inventory of Family Protective Factors, Family Strength Scale, and Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale. Descriptive statistics and a structural equation modeling analytic approach were used. The analytic model explained 89% of the distribution of marital satisfaction. FS had a strong direct effect on DAS (= 0.89). SWB had indirect standard effects on FS (=0.37) through FPF, and on DAS (= 0.76) through FPF and FS. Also, FPF had indirect standard effect on DAS (= 0.52) through FS (p < .000). Consisted to the strength-based approach, the results of this study confirmed the interrelationships among spiritual well-being, family protective factors, and family strength and their simultaneous positive effects on marital satisfaction, and suggest that family counselors employ an integrated spiritual-religious, resilient, and strength-based perspective to inform their work with couples.